The New Hampshire Union Leader asks a good question – Why try to undo voter ID?

Liberals said New Hampshire’s new voter ID law was unconstitutional.  They said it was going to “disenfranchise” voters.  They said there is no such thing as voter fraud. They were wrong on all counts.  And still they are pushing to overturn the law.  The U.S. Justice Department, run by voter ID opponent Eric Holder, approved the law.  On Election Day, there were no reports of anyone being denied the right to vote because of the law.  The New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office said there were no cases of disenfranchisement.

Heavily sanctioned election lawyer Gerry Hebert knows a thing or two about “lacking facts to back up a claim.”  Just ask the defendants in United States v. Jones, where Hebert lacked the facts to back up his claims of racially discriminatory intent in a voting case brought against an Alabama jurisdiction.  Naturally, Ryan Reilly at Huff Post makes no mention of Hebert’s history of court imposed sanctions when he decided to use Hebert as a source for this article about New Hampshire bailouts. 

I discussed Heberts sanctions in my New York Times bestseller Injustice thusly:

“In United States v. Jones, the Voting Section was sanctioned $86,626 for bringing a frivolous case in Alabama. The DOJ brought the suit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to block over fifty white voters from participating in an election in a majority black district. The appeals court ruled that the lawsuit was filed “without conducting a proper investigation of its truth [and was] unconscionable.… Hopefully, we will not again be faced with reviewing a case as carelessly instigated as this one.”  The 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals did not mince words in its scolding of DOJ lawyers including then-Voting Section attorney Gerald Herbert, who would later become a vociferous critic of the Bush DOJ:

Here is the amicus brief in Shelby County for me and a number of former civil rights offcials including Brad Reynolds, Chuck Cooper, Roger Clegg, Bob Driscoll, Brad Schlozman, Clint Bolick and some others.  Filed by the Bancroft firm.

One of the more important parts:

“Instead, both Congress and DOJ have taken a number of actions that have only exacerbated the already-serious constitutional flaws of Section 5. In the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA, Congress abrogated two of this Court’s most important decisions interpreting Section 5, Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461 (2003), and Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board, 528 U.S. 320 (2000) (“Bossier Parish II“). Both of those decisions relied on the canon of constitutional avoidance and were critical to preventing an unconstitutionally overbroad application of Section 5. Yet the 2006 reauthorization discards Georgia and Bossier Parish II, and significantly expands the substantive grounds on which DOJ or the district court can refuse to preclear a change in voting procedures.”

According to two articles out of West Virginia here and here, voter ID will be an issue in the coming state legislative session.  As Republicans make political gains in West Virginia and the state is hit with multiple voter fraud scandals, photo ID legislation is again on the agenda and hiding from the issue is not an option. West Virginia Democrats risk losing credibility with voters by killing the popular legislation for partisan reasons. 

Of interest, the Democrat Secretary of State Natalie Tenant seems to endorse the need for confirmation of identity of a voter at the polls by insisting the current ID requirement serves its purpose.  She also endorses the use of digital photos in precincts to confirm the identity of voters at the polls.  However, she is less enthused on having the voter bring a license or other photo ID to the polls.  Of course, that is the easiest and least expensive alternative. 

Democrats really give the voters no credit at all. 

Link

The Department of Justice is asking for more information from the City of Brookhaven, Mississippi and delaying the approaching local elections to be held on the new wards lines.  DOJ is not providing any indication on what the problem might be with the new ward lines.  According to the story, the only expressed concern to the city was not with the actual lines but the process by which the lines were drawn. 

There didn’t seem to be any vocal opposition to the new lines which passed with almost unanimous agreement on the lines, a final 6-1 vote. Yet this is politics and redistricting where elbows are thrown.  Now the Holder DOJ has now inserted a “be kind and considerate” clause into the retrogression analysis of the Voting Rights Act where any politician or activist can call up DOJ and complain of their poor treatment (“No one listened to my perfect idea”) in an effort to stop the election just as candidates are qualifying to run for office. 

If the Justice Department denies preclearance to the city’s ward map, further confusion could arise. The city would have to make revisions of some kind to the proposed redistricting plan.

Fernald said he doesn’t know how the election would be handled in such an event.  “We’ve never faced this before,” Fernald said.  Questions and requests for additional documents
by the Justice Department have focused on the process by which the city
reached its proposed ward map.  “The questions seems to be more about the
process,” Fernald said. “They’ve never said anything about the ultimate
plan to me. (They’ve) been more concerned about how we got where we
got.”

Fernald said he’s sent the Justice Department
copies of election returns going back several years, copies of minutes
of board meetings and articles from The Daily Leader about work sessions
and meetings where redistricting was discussed.  Fernald said the last packet of documents he sent was submitted about a week before Christmas.

Since then, there’s been only silence.

The Alaska Dispatch reports that the state supreme court has ordered another redistricting round for the 2014 election as the state tries to find a way to comply with both state constitutional parameters and federal requirements under the Voting Rights Act – in the order the court wants.

Alaska’s newly redrawn political districts, which sent the 2012
elections into a frenzy — with 59 of 60 seats up for re-election —
will have to be redone. Again. This time before the 2014 election.

On Friday the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the plan, authored by
the state’s redistricting board, had violated court-ordered procedures
by adhering to the U.S. Voting Rights Act first, with compliance with
the Alaska State Constitution a secondary consideration.

This article in the Anchorage Daily News provides a similar explanation of why the process was ultimately overturned by the Alaska high court and sent back to the map-drawing board despite meeting voting rights requirements under the VRA.  Alaska Republicans will be unhappy as they had been very successful this cycle on the lines as drawn.

“It’s very, very difficult to prosecute people when you can’t even identify who they are,” Van Hollen said.

The USA Today focuses on how Arizona citizens voting in multiple states were identified and prosecuted. 

“Vote early and vote often” is a laugh line politicians often invoke as they make a pitch fo people’s support. 

But it’s no laughing matter to a half-dozen former Arizonans, who have been prosecuted for voting twice in past elections.

Thanks
to a data-sharing agreement among 20 states, Arizona can
cross-reference its voter data with other states and ferret out people
who vote more than once in the same election cycle.

The USA Today focuses on how Arizona citizens voting in multiple states were identified and prosecuted. 

“Vote early and vote often” is a laugh line politicians often invoke as they make a pitch fo people’s support. 

But it’s no laughing matter to a half-dozen former Arizonans, who have been prosecuted for voting twice in past elections.

Thanks
to a data-sharing agreement among 20 states, Arizona can
cross-reference its voter data with other states and ferret out people
who vote more than once in the same election cycle.